1 Jul
2007
1 Jul
'07
6:25 p.m.
While looking for another part (actually a replacement door for a Tandon
5.25" drive) in the depths of my workshop, I came across a machine I'd
half-forgotten owening, and wondered if anyone recognises it.
It's made by Panasonic, and is a luggable. The carrying handle is one one
side (not the back, as is usual for such machines). The front of the
machine comes off, and is an XT-layout keyboard (alas F9 and F10 are
missing on my unit, but I'll bet that's what the missing keys should be).
The front of the main unit has a 9" monochrome CRT, and to the right of
it 2 vertical half-height 5.25" drive bays. On my machine the left one
contains a floppy drive, the right one a Seagate hard drive. To the left
of the CRT is a pull-out stretchy cable ending in a mini-DIN plug that
fits the hack of the keyboard
On the back are the normal mains connnector, switch and fuse. A DE9
connector marked RGB (CGA pinout?) a 36 pin microribbon printer port and
a DB25 serial port. On top of the unit is a thermal printer.
It comes apart by removing numerous screws. In the bottom of the machine,
accessible from under the chassis is a large PCB. It contains an 8088
with a 40 pin DIL socket alongside it (8087?), 256K DRAM, 8250 serial
chip, 8255 parallel chip, 6845 CRT controller, a PQFP surface=mount
device alongside it (video circuitry), 8257 DMA chip, etc. Basically,
what you'd expect to find on a PC/XT motherboard. Theere are 2 62 pin
expansion slots, one of which contains the hard disk controller (looks to
be a generic PC/XT part), the other contains a PCB with 512K RAM (I would
guess only 640K of the totla memory is useable) and a real time clock chip.
The printer has its own cotnrol electronics based round a 8050
microcontroller. The keyboard contians an 8048.
Does anyone recognise this machine?
-tony
1 Jul
1 Jul
6:57 p.m.
On Sun, 1 Jul 2007, Tony Duell wrote:
While looking for another part (actually a replacement
door for a Tandon
5.25" drive)
are people still breaking the pins?
It's made by Panasonic, and is a luggable. The
carrying handle is one one
. . .
Does anyone recognise this machine?
Sounds like the Panasonic "Senior Partner". I think that digibarn has a
webpage of one. and maybe Uncle Roger?
7:17 p.m.
On 1 Jul 2007 at 15:57, Fred Cisin wrote:
On Sun, 1 Jul 2007, Tony Duell wrote:
...or losing them. I replaced the last door pin on a Tandon TM-100-
4M with a section of 14 ga. stainless bicycle spoke. Worked fine.
Cheers,
Chuck
While looking for another part (actually a
replacement door for a Tandon
5.25" drive)
are people still breaking the pins? 
2 Jul
2 Jul
4:22 a.m.
On Sun, 1 Jul 2007, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 1 Jul 2007 at 15:57, Fred Cisin wrote:
How do you break the pins? I most often see the plastic parts that grip
the pins breaking more often.
--
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
On Sun, 1 Jul 2007, Tony Duell wrote:
...or losing them. I replaced the last door pin on a Tandon TM-100-
4M with a section of 14 ga. stainless bicycle spoke. Worked fine. While looking for another part (actually a
replacement door for a Tandon
5.25" drive)
are people still breaking the pins?
4:40 p.m.
> > > While looking for another part
(actually a replacement door for a Tandon
> > > 5.25" drive)
> > are people still breaking the pins?
> ...or losing them. I replaced the last door pin on a Tandon TM-100-
> 4M with a section of 14 ga. stainless bicycle spoke. Worked fine.
On Mon, 2 Jul 2007, David Griffith wrote:
How do you break the pins? I most often see the
plastic parts that grip
the pins breaking more often.
That is correct.
In a lab full of college students, I noticed two behaviors associated with
broken door hinges of Tandon drives. Instead of gripping the door between
thumb and forefinger and easing it open, some students hooked it with
forefinger, and snapped it open, letting it slam against the stop. A few
others would poke the upper part of the door to make it slam open.
Instead of replacing the drives, we bought a large quantity of doors and
hinges. When the college switched to mostly new machines, the college
administrators threw out our box of repair parts, rendering all subsequent
ones that broke "unrepairable".
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
5:07 p.m.
On 2 Jul 2007 at 13:40, Fred Cisin wrote:
Instead of replacing the drives, we bought a large
quantity of doors and
hinges. When the college switched to mostly new machines, the college
administrators threw out our box of repair parts, rendering all subsequent
ones that broke "unrepairable".
The drives with the broken plastic holding the guide pin can be
repaired with a bit of ingenuity.
I saw the slam-bang behavior with the Micropolis "squeeze to close"
type of drives--folks would just quickly flip the door open and let
it bang against the stop. Micropolis drives, fortunately, were built
like a brick outhouse and could take the abuse. We tried replacing
the Micropolis drives with Tandons and had door problems in the field
all too frequently. I think we eventually went to MPIs for awhile.
There just weren't that many manufacturers of 100 TPI drives at any
time.
Cheers,
Chuck
8:54 p.m.
On Mon, 2 Jul 2007, Chuck Guzis wrote:
I saw the slam-bang behavior with the Micropolis
"squeeze to close"
type of drives--folks would just quickly flip the door open and let
it bang against the stop. Micropolis drives, fortunately, were built
like a brick outhouse and could take the abuse.
They're slow, with a helical lead screw, but the last working
5.25" drive in the world will probably be an early Micropolis.
9:37 p.m.
From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com>
On Mon, 2 Jul 2007, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Hi
It's a shame their hard drives were not as good. I think they did
them selve in with a product that was really bad. When I was
working a HaL, we had almost a 100% failure rate in about 1-2
weeks of burnin. We cahnged brands ( I forget who ) and
had your typical 2 or 3 in a thousand rate.
Dwight
I saw the slam-bang behavior with the Micropolis
"squeeze to close"
type of drives--folks would just quickly flip the door open and let
it bang against the stop. Micropolis drives, fortunately, were built
like a brick outhouse and could take the abuse.
They're slow, with a helical lead screw, but the last working
5.25" drive in the world will probably be an early Micropolis.
7:19 p.m.
From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com>
---snip---
In a lab full of college students, I noticed two behaviors associated with
broken door hinges of Tandon drives. Instead of gripping the door between
thumb and forefinger and easing it open, some students hooked it with
forefinger, and snapped it open, letting it slam against the stop. A few
others would poke the upper part of the door to make it slam open.
Hi
I have a solution that might help keeping it from failing in the future.
I have had a number of drop flags fail on pinball machines. I found
that a thin piece of poly foam would protect them. I put it where
the impact was. Unlike other foams, the poly foam seems to last
forever ( not always a good thing ).
Dwight
_________________________________________________________________
http://newlivehotmail.com
8:37 p.m.
New subject: TM100 doors
On Mon, 2 Jul 2007, dwight elvey wrote:
I have a solution that might help keeping it from
failing in the future.
I have had a number of drop flags fail on pinball machines. I found
that a thin piece of poly foam would protect them. I put it where
the impact was. Unlike other foams, the poly foam seems to last
forever ( not always a good thing ).
. . . but do it to ALL of the drives!
We did that with the A: drive of the dean's computer. He noticed that it
wasn't opening quite as far as the other drives, and forced it, . . .
7:40 p.m.
How do you
break the pins? I most often see the plastic parts that grip
the pins breaking more often.
That is correct.
In a lab full of college students, I noticed two behaviors associated with
broken door hinges of Tandon drives. Instead of gripping the door between
thumb and forefinger and easing it open, some students hooked it with
forefinger, and snapped it open, letting it slam against the stop. A few
others would poke the upper part of the door to make it slam open.
Actually, I've found pressing on the upper part of the door to be much
kinder to the pins than pulling the door open from the bottom edge (think
about what the applied force reacts against). The trick, of course, is
not to let the clamp arm slam open, but to guide the door open gently and
let the arm rise slowly
Instead of replacing the drives, we bought a large
quantity of doors and
hinges. When the college switched to mostly new machines, the college
administrators threw out our box of repair parts, rendering all subsequent
ones that broke "unrepairable".
:-(. I'm getting low on replacement doors too. I may have to start making
those hihgt parts from scratch.
Of course I've kept the parts I removed from this drive. If nothing else,
the door itself is fine, and the broken parts of the hinge may be useful
if I do have to fabricate one.
-tony
8:42 p.m.
On Tue, 3 Jul 2007, Tony Duell wrote:
Actually, I've found pressing on the upper part of
the door to be much
kinder to the pins than pulling the door open from the bottom edge (think
about what the applied force reacts against). The trick, of course, is
not to let the clamp arm slam open, but to guide the door open gently and
let the arm rise slowly
a gentle press works fine. What I was seeing was a group of students who
would do it with a sudden jab, letting it slam open
3 Jul
3 Jul
2:57 a.m.
On Tue, 2007-07-03 at 00:40 +0100, Tony Duell wrote:
Actually, I've found pressing on the upper part of
the door to be much
kinder to the pins than pulling the door open from the bottom edge (think
about what the applied force reacts against). The trick, of course, is
not to let the clamp arm slam open, but to guide the door open gently and
let the arm rise slowly
I'm surprised there's not some sort of damper to slow it down.
Something like the "soft eject" things on old cassette decks maybe,
where you've got a little rack on the curved "rail" on the door, a
little pinion and two plastic plates stuck together with grease. Or
even a small dashpot like the thing on the throttle mechanism of
thirstymatic cars that stops the throttle slamming shut when you lift
off quickly.
I'm sure cost is a consideration, but for an expensive (for the time)
piece of equipment it would seem reasonable.
Gordon
3:53 p.m.
I'm surprised there's not some sort of damper
to slow it down.
Indeed. I guess they assumed that users would be careful with such an
expensive drive.
I don't know whether it's bevcause I know how these things are made, and
the sort of materials used, but I rarely break things like this muself. I
guess I know the sort of force it could stand, and if it appears to be
needing more, I investigate rather than force it.
Something like the "soft eject" things on
old cassette decks maybe,
where you've got a little rack on the curved "rail" on the door, a
little pinion and two plastic plates stuck together with grease. Or
There is a similar damper in the eject mechanism of the Sony
full-height 3.5" drives. It's a round black thing at the back, near the
head load solenoid. It often seems to be leaking grease...
I've seen them in some later 3.5" drives too.
-tony
6:28 p.m.
On Tue, 3 Jul 2007, Gordon JC Pearce wrote:
I'm surprised there's not some sort of damper
to slow it down.
Something like the "soft eject" things on old cassette decks maybe,
where you've got a little rack on the curved "rail" on the door, a
little pinion and two plastic plates stuck together with grease. Or
even a small dashpot like the thing on the throttle mechanism of
thirstymatic cars that stops the throttle slamming shut when you lift
off quickly.
I'm sure cost is a consideration, but for an expensive (for the time)
piece of equipment it would seem reasonable.
When handled properly, it's not a problem.
They failed to realize the level of ABUSE that they would have to endure.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
2 Jul
2 Jul
7:10 p.m.
On Sun, 1 Jul 2007, Tony Duell wrote:
I wish. If it'd been the pins, I would not have been looking for a
replacemetn door. I'd be popping into the garage, grabbing a bit of
plastic or brss stock, and machining it to size.
No, what failed on my drive was the plastic hinge part that bolts to the
dront of the clamp arm and that's attached to the door itself by said
pins. The plastic had gon very brittle, and the part where the pins
actually fit was broken apart.
While looking for another part (actually a
replacement door for a Tandon
5.25" drive)
are people still breaking the pins? It's made by Panasonic, and is a luggable.
The carrying handle is one one
. . .
Does anyone recognise this machine?
Sounds like the Panasonic "Senior Partner". I think that digibarn has a
webpage of one. and maybe Uncle Roger? 
1 Jul
1 Jul
8:05 p.m.
Does anyone recognise this machine?
Sounds exactly like the Panasonic Sr. Partner in my collection:
http://www.vintage-computer.com/panasonicsr.shtml
Erik Klein
www.vintage-computer.com
www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum
The Vintage Computer Forum
10:03 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
Does anyone recognise this machine?
Panasonic Sr. Partner, as others have said. I have two (although one is
a bit flaky, it locks up for no reason sometimes).
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
3 Jul
3 Jul
1:28 a.m.
On Sunday 01 July 2007 18:25, Tony Duell wrote:
While looking for another part (actually a replacement
door for a Tandon
5.25" drive) in the depths of my workshop, I came across a machine I'd
half-forgotten owening, and wondered if anyone recognises it.
It's made by Panasonic, and is a luggable. The carrying handle is one one
side (not the back, as is usual for such machines). The front of the
machine comes off, and is an XT-layout keyboard (alas F9 and F10 are
missing on my unit, but I'll bet that's what the missing keys should be).
The front of the main unit has a 9" monochrome CRT, and to the right of
it 2 vertical half-height 5.25" drive bays. On my machine the left one
contains a floppy drive, the right one a Seagate hard drive. To the left
of the CRT is a pull-out stretchy cable ending in a mini-DIN plug that
fits the hack of the keyboard
On the back are the normal mains connnector, switch and fuse. A DE9
connector marked RGB (CGA pinout?) a 36 pin microribbon printer port and
a DB25 serial port. On top of the unit is a thermal printer.
It comes apart by removing numerous screws. In the bottom of the machine,
accessible from under the chassis is a large PCB. It contains an 8088
with a 40 pin DIL socket alongside it (8087?), 256K DRAM, 8250 serial
chip, 8255 parallel chip, 6845 CRT controller, a PQFP surface=mount
device alongside it (video circuitry), 8257 DMA chip, etc. Basically,
what you'd expect to find on a PC/XT motherboard. Theere are 2 62 pin
expansion slots, one of which contains the hard disk controller (looks to
be a generic PC/XT part), the other contains a PCB with 512K RAM (I would
guess only 640K of the totla memory is useable) and a real time clock chip.
The printer has its own cotnrol electronics based round a 8050
microcontroller. The keyboard contians an 8048.
Does anyone recognise this machine?
I can't remember specifics like a model number or whatever, but I do remember
that machine, being advertised in magazines and such...
What sort of info were you looking for, in particular?
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
6263
days inactive
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20 comments
9 participants
participants (9)
-
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
cclist＠sydex.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
classiccmp＠vintage-computer.com -
dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu -
dkelvey＠hotmail.com -
gordon＠gjcp.net -
rtellason＠verizon.net -
trixter＠oldskool.org